Graphic Gathering

Last October, I posted about Graphic Gathering, a new project for schools. The project aimed to give secondary students an insight into design at Higher Education and industry level by answering a real-life brief delivered by V&A and D&AD. On the 5th of February we welcomed back participating schools from across the UK to present their responses to the D&AD White Pencil Open brief. The students were challenged with the following proposition: We want you to make it impossible for anyone to ignore Peace One Day. Using inspiration from our collections of peace and protest posters from the Prints and Drawings archivesas well as advice from D&AD, professional designers and recent graduates, the students returned to show us what they had come up with.

Among the Industry panel giving feedback on the day, were Kati Howe from D&AD, previous D&AD Student Award winner Martin Craster, Ruth Sykes from REG graphic design and Pali Palavathanan from Johnson Banks. The panel were all really impressed with the broad concepts and thinking that came from the student’s solutions to the brief.

St Aloysius RC School started a Face book campaign in their school and local community to draw attention to the cause; they produced a series of typographic posters which they used to advertise the Peace One Day campaign.

Rainham Mark Grammar School presented a variety of interesting concepts, the group that were selected to present also drew attention to their campaign through social media by adapting the well known logo’s of giants such as Google and You Tube and merging them with the Peace One Day logo, a simple idea that would reach millions. In addition to this, their campaign touched on the sensitive issue of cyber bullying by suggesting that peace one day was important not just in the physical world but also online.

Springwood High School focussed on an idea which wouldn’t cost anything for the participants. Pass it on, involved a simple download. People could go online, download various net designs and print them off to make small paper objects which would advertise Peace One Day. These paper objects could be hung from doors or in windows to show support for the cause and participate in raising awareness among smaller communities.

Havering Sixth Form College, formed one of the largest groups that took part, with 5 groups presenting work overall. Again the panel were really impressed with the range of ideas and general approach to the brief. Concepts put forward from Havering included; a sticker campaign, mobile overriding campaign, using TFL bikes to champion the Peace One Day logo in a re-cycling campaign, a community project using origami doves called I wish for , street art advertising, interactive branding such as giant jigsaw puzzles and much more.

Overall the project was a great opportunity to give students an insight into professional practise as well as model how to utilise the Museums collections and resources. Each of the students who participated were awarded a yellow certificate for their portfolio from the V&A and D&AD.

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The Learning Department programmes events, activities, courses and projects to inspire creativity in all of our audiences. We also manage gallery interpretation, residency programmes and evaluation.